Pondering a Google Desktop

I've always had a healthy fascination with Microsoft alternatives. For example, I've been testing different Linux distributions for over a decade now, and I've purchased three Apple Macintosh machines since 2001 just to use Apple's excellent OS X. Eventually, however, I always return to the safety and comfort of Windows and Microsoft Office. In the mid-1990s, Netscape's sudden rise and fall provided a brief glimpse at what an alternative computing environment could be like, and today, products such as OpenOffice.org, GAIM, Gimp, and Mozilla Firefox speak to me on a level I'm not even sure I completely understand.

But you don't have to be a technology freak or even a Microsoft hater (which I'm not) to examine non-Microsoft solutions. As I've discussed previously here in Connected Home Express, one of the easiest ways to ease into alternatives is to examine non-Microsoft solutions that are designed to run under Windows. That way, you retain your options while exploring other options. You don't have to switch to the Mac or Linux to be happy. But you might be surprised to discover that there's a wide world of wonderful non-Microsoft software out there, waiting for your attention. Much of it, too, is free.

Lately, much of this software has been coming from Google, and with a massive cash hoard and more on the way, Google is poised to take on Microsoft in more and more areas. As someone naturally inclined to Microsoft alternatives, I find Google's software strangely attractive. And what's really interesting about these offerings—all of which are absolutely free—is that they seem to be pointing to a future in which most of our computing time is spent interacting with Web services and not mired in desktop-based applications. Some have opined that this future might be thought of as a Google Desktop. It doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Here are just a few of notable tools and services Google is now offering for free.

Google Search Google's initial offering, a Web-based search engine, is still going strong and is arguably one of the most-often-used Web services ever created. Google has augmented its basic search engine over the years with a host of features almost too numerous to list. Some of the better features include Google Local, for finding businesses and services that are local to you; Google Maps and Google Earth, for getting directions, maps, and amazing satellite-based imagery; Google Images for finding photos; and Google News for aggregating news stories from around the globe.

If you're a GMail user (see below), you can even customize the Google Search home page to include the information you specify. This customized page is a far cry from the personalization and content offerings available on MSN and Yahoo!, but it's getting there. I've customized my Google Search page to include news feeds from the BBC, News.com, Reuters, and CNN; a few RSS feeds; my Gmail Inbox; weather alerts; and blurbs from MSNBC Travel.

Google Toolbar Can't get enough Google? Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla Firefox users can download the Google Toolbar, which provides a quick interface to Google Search along with a host of other services, including Web form spell checking and auto-fill, page highlighting, and pop-up blocking (IE only, as Firefox includes this feature already).

GMail: Google Mail Google's amazing GMail service (called Google Mail in some countries) combines a full-featured Web-based email client with over 2GB of storage space. (It's variable: My account currently has over 2.5GB of space.) It also lets you use the email client of your choice. (I use GMail with Microsoft Outlook.) GMail was previously available only to those select few who were invited to test the service, but today, anyone in the United States can get a GMail account simply by installing Google Talk (see below) and providing Google with a valid cell-phone number. (This requirement is necessary to prevent email address squatting.) And if you choose to use the Web-based client instead of an email application, consider getting the GMail Notifier, which provides you with small alerts when new email arrives.

Once you get a GMail account, those other Web-based email services will seem quaint by comparison. This is Web email the way it should be.

Google Desktop Search with Sidebar Only recently released, Google Desktop Search 2.0 with Sidebar (not to be confused with the mystical Google Desktop I discussed previously) is an add-on for Windows that replaces the previous Google Desktop Search product and provides a number of other useful services, as well. In addition to a taskbar-based or floating search box, you can configure Google Desktop Search in its most useful configuration, the Sidebar, which adds a variable-width UI element to the side of your screen. This Sidebar can be stocked with customizable areas called panels, each of which can interact with unique Web services. By default, Google Desktop Search's Sidebar provides panels for such things as Email (GMail and Outlook-based), News, Photos, Scratch Pad, Stocks, and Weather. You can close, resize, and move the panels around as you see fit, and you can download more from the Web. Best of all, because Google has opened up the programming interfaces for the Sidebar, new panels are coming online every day.

The Sidebar in Google Desktop Search is an amazing piece of code, especially given that it's only the first version of this tool. I've configured mine with panels for Google Talk (see below), Photos, Weather (with five cities I frequently visit), Google Search, and gdTunes, the latter of which you can use to control Apple's iTunes. The Sidebar is similar to a feature—also called Sidebar—that Microsoft will be adding to Windows Vista in late 2006. But Google's software is here today and doesn't require an OS upgrade.

Google Talk Google's latest release is its most enigmatic. Dubbed Google Talk, the application is a Jabber-compliant instant messaging (IM) solution. Most Google tools offer a simple UI, but Google Talk takes this simplicity to new levels of austerity. In fact, you might say that Google Talk is too simple: It offers text-based chat and audio chat, but no video or telephony features, and it's so barebones that it doesn't even support basic IM features such as emoticons. On the plus side, Google Talk is wonderfully free of advertisements or the annoying features MSN has been adding to MSN Messenger lately. And Google has announced its intention to use Google Talk as the Rosetta Stone of the IM world, interoperating in some distant future with IM clients from AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and others. It's not there yet, but it can only improve.

Picasa One of Google's more impressive applications, called Picasa, runs only on Windows and is very much a traditional Windows application, making it quite distinct from other Google tools. Picasa is an image-management and -editing tool that is without peer. Better and more feature-packed than Apple's well-reviewed iPhoto, Picasa has everything you need to organize, edit, and share your digital photos. It's a wonderful application that I once paid for—until Google bought the company that made it and set Picasa free. If you're using Windows, you need this application, and you need it now.

Blogger Another service I once paid for—again, until Google set it free—is Blogger, one of the Web's best blog front-ends. I wrote about Blogger back in "Blogging 101", July 2005, and have been using the service for more than 4 years to run my Internet Nexus blog. I can't recommend Blogger enough: It recently added some interesting new features, including a new image-uploading tool. And Microsoft Word users can now download a free Blogger for Word add-on that lets you blog directly from your favorite word processor.

Where It's All Headed There's so much more to talk about, but I would need a book to cover it all. To discover other Google tools and services, check out Google's Web site. What's really amazing is that many of Google's free services were once expensive. Google Earth, Picasa, Blogger, and Hello are all examples of services that started outside of Google and cost customers money. Now, they're all free. Some Google services, such as Google Search, are paid for by small, innocuous Web-based advertisements, but many are blissfully free of such things. For example, Google Talk—although Spartan and bare—is also free of the annoying animated ads that mar Microsoft MSN Messenger and other IM tools. If Google does move to an ad-based model for its non-Search products, I hope they'll begin offering paid versions that don't deliver ads. I'd certainly pay for such products.

Today, just about the only thing Google doesn't offer is an office-productivity suite, although there's been some talk about the company purchasing Sun's excellent Star Office suite, which is based on the OpenOffice.org code base. And you have to wonder whether the company is working on a computing environment that could replace Windows but provide an excellent shell for its Web-based services. Still, when you couple a Windows-based PC today with free solutions such as Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and a few Google tools, you can be off and running—with precious little need for anything else.

Discuss this Article 19

C. Woody butler (not verified)

on Sep 7, 2005

Why would they buy star office when they can use the openoffice codebase?
Besides, wouldn't they be more likely to push something out on the browser and have "browser as terminal"? with the GMail interface they've got a decent to good start on a word or atleast a wordpad replacement, and they could probably pump out a decent baby spreedsheet without alot of pain, or just snag one from somewhere. Anything else they'd just need front-ends to HTML pages (database, presentation) and spin Picassa up abit more and you've got a Paint replacement.
That'd make more sense to them - I think anyway.
--woody

A. "Evil Agenda" or not, direct marketing PAYS BILLS. Bills that end-users won't have to. And to Ms. Single Mother, Mr. Midwest Trucker, and the rest of the aren't-online-but-want-to-be-but-think-they-can't-afford-it masses, when presented with, say, a FREE LAPTOP WITH FREE UNLIMITED COAST TO COAST WIRELESS, PHONE, 2-WAY VIDEO, and all the other freebies they'll throw at you, the aforementioned parties will not, i repeat, will NOT, give half a s#!+ about whether or not their anonymous statistics are used to, say, directly market to them thru banners, google-approved-spammail, and the rest of the nominal BS when they are getting, for free, the most powerful tool they could ever recieve. If you think this is beyond their scope, would you have said the same thing about what they give away now if you heard it 5 years ago?
B. Kimmon - Bottom line, we all lost our privacy when we got an @ sign, an IP, or an e-dentity...to what degree is limited to your understanding, and to what impact is determined by what 'privacy' really is, and how much 'privacy' really matters. Not how much it CAN matter, but how much it DOES.
C. Suasoria - Good points. But you refer to google's CURRENT style of searching, which, albeit clunky and limited, can only get exponentially more powerful, especially when you're buying IT firms like hotels in Monopoly. And as for Searching Vs Organizing....no matter how organized your methodology, you still end up searching thru that organization to find what you want
And as for the Tough Sell comment- the consumer and the smallbusinessperson are the oarmen on the Slave Ship USA and when google starts beating the drum faster and louder, but lets you rest your arms for a while, even those who didn't realize how tired their arms really were might take a Gbreak.

Also forget their (lack of) privacy policy including those built-to-last cookies and the company's non-disclosures.
Enjoy their products, sure. But I'll be laughing at those who traded their privacy for a gmail account or were to lazy to find an alternate newsreader.

I used Windows Desktop (was ok), then I used copernic (see coment below) then I used google (good.) As for the privary issues with google, I think a lot of people need to learn how to read / check options enabled because the privacy issues are only there if you enable the privacy invading features. As for copernic, what a piece of ****. It doesn't find anything at all apart from files that are blatantly obvious. And privacy? The search engine the copernic installs in my browser looks more like a spam site than any other I've seen, and for the best part when I uninstall copernic the crappy search engine it installed into my browser is still there as default!

The funny thing about all this is that as much as I like Google conceptually, I actually dont use that many of their products - and that's the problem with this desktop. Its a collection but not necesarily best of breed (soud familiar, like Microsoft)
For example I was excited aby Google Desktop, but it didn't stick. In contrast, Copernic Desktop quickly became my best friend. I found it used less resources on my PC and the search capibility on my desktop was better. In fact copernic is starting to even infornge on my use of my music jukebox. The best test of software is if you KEEP using it regularly and Copernic did that better than Google Desktop search.
Another example: pictures. Picasa was cute, but it crashed on me a few times and it was somewhat rigid in its cataloging/structuring. Iview Media Pro became my best friend because its flat out a better library system. Irfanview can do much of the rest what picassa does. Iview is not free - but that's the thing - what does it say about Picassa that I preferred Iview still?
I do use Gmail and I think its super. Couldn't ask for more.
But as I look at this Desktop integrator, to be honest, I'd be more likely to use one if Copernic made one. That (searching/indexing your own PC) is really the key and there Google is not a clear winner. Even the X1/Yahoo is very close too.
But even though I am not tempted by this product, I applaud Google - it raises the bar for MS and for what we as users can expect to be offerred. Now hurry up Copernic and get me something to use!

Google apps will be a tough sell outside of the consumer and the very small business. Google computing is based on searching data, not organizing it. (Lee Gomes of the WSJ wondered what Google has against folders in his review of Gmail.) By now, Windows does a great job of organizing data and files. Sure, MSFT copied the genius of file management from Apple (who turned around and introduced its Tiger OS with the Spotlight feature, which is, that's right, searching). But Google-style searching itself, no matter how powerful or revolutionary, is not a strong enough data management tool.

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